Scouting five-star point guard AJ Johnson

Inside Texas reported on Friday that five-star point guard AJ Johnson would be announcing his commitment on Monday. Johnson is the No. 7 player in the 2023 On3 150. The 6-foot-5 point guard is No. 16 in the 2023 On3 Consensus.

Johnson took senior year official visits to Texas and LSU. He took a junior year official visit to Arizona State, his first visit. Johnson had visits scheduled with Louisville, NC State, and Southern California that each got canceled.

Let’s break down Johnson’s game ahead of his commitment.

Read the recruiting intel on AJ Johnson

What Johnson brings

AJ Johson is a unique point guard prospect, given his size. Johnson is 6-foot-5, if not pushing 6-foot-6. He has long arms and a top-end burst rarely seen in high school. Johnson is a late bloomer, he entered high school at 5-foot-10, and then he kept growing.

Now, there are conversations about Johnson being the fastest person in high school, with the ball in his hands. It is these physical traits that have Johnson as a bonafide five-star and being looked at by NBA scouts.

Johnson, who is a senior at Los Angeles (CA) So Cal Academy, is a point guard. A new-aged point guard who plays with positional size and speed. Johnson is best at getting downhill, into the teeth of the defense; he has footwork at full speed and an asoorment of finishing angles at the rim.

The biggest growth necessary in Johnson’s game is he will need to add weight. As you can imagine, growing around eight inches in less than 24 months, the body will need to catch up to the height. Johnson is currently around 170 pounds.

Johnson is a good passer with natural touch on the ball. He is at his best in the half-court playing as the initiator in the pick-and-roll. Johnson does have a floater but will need to continue working on his balance and base of that shot. The jump shot got stronger as the summer went along, but he will need to continue getting in reps there as well.

At the end of the day, the physical tools with Johnson are vast. He simply possesses things, with his size and burst, that most point guards do not have. With his late growth spurt, right now, Johnson is like a ball of clay, ready to be molded.

On3s Recruiting Prediction Machine

As of this writing, On3’s Recruiting Prediction Machine (RPM) gives Texas a 96.0 percent chance of landing AJ Johnson, the five-star point guard.

The On3 engineering group teamed up with Spiny.ai to create the industry’s first algorithm and machine learning-based product to predict where athletes will attend college. Starting from the ground up, On3 built an entirely new product that utilizes data, human expertise, and machine learning.